June 10, 1963: A profile in courage with lethal consequences

President Kennedy’s speech to the graduating class of American University in Washington DC 51 years ago today represented the high point of his efforts to wind down the Cold War. His vigorous style and clear mind never had a more important goal — or more powerful enemies.

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Early Detente with the USSR sure took a bullet in the head on 11/22/63, didn’t it? And that was courtesy of Lyndon Johnson & the US national security state.

William Kelly:

When Mikhail Gorbachev visted Dallas in 1998 he stopped by Dealey Plaza and at the Sixth Floor Museum he called attention to the AU speech when he wrote into the guest book:

“I’ve long been interested in the life of John F. Kennedy. He was certainly a great president of the United States. For us who live in a complicated time of transition of great importance is the vision of John F. Kennedy, his thoughts about peace and about how to live in the world.

President Kennedy’s remarks on June 10, 1963 at American University are of even greater importance today than then. Thirty five years ago he already saw what we have come to understand only now.

The best memory of this man would be to understand his deeds and thoughts and to translate them in policies and more importance in the life of nations. He looked far ahead and he wanted to change a great deal. Perhaps it is this that is the key to the mystery of the death of President John Kennedy.”

JFK’s bold effort to wind down the Cold War marked him as a member of the elite who was willing to challenge the elite consensus because he could see that continuing the Cold War would endanger the world. He became what the right wingers of the 1930s said FDR was, a traitor to his own class, one who spoke the truth and called for real change, a very dangerous thing to do. Watching this speech and seeing the clarity and humanity of JFK’s message makes me wonder, inevitably, about what might have been, and the possibilities we lost when he died. He spoke at a time when hope was still alive. We have no public figures now of his stature who are willing to tell the truth, no matter what.

Where did the quote “A profile in courage with lethal consequences” come from?
This video is a time capsule from another country and another time when there seemed to be more light and hope in the world. Watching it is almost too much to bear, considering the squalor and cynicism or our current condition.

As good as this speech is, and it is quite good, I actually think the speech he made on the floor of the senate, about Algeria on July 2, 1957 was even better.

In fact, that I think is the best speech he ever gave that I know about.

To take on Eisenhower, Nixon and Foster Dulles over the issue of colonialism in Africa, back then, I mean that took guts. ANd to read the insights in that speech for today’s world about the threat of unleashed and uncontrolled Arab nationalism, I mean, the guy was right on the money, and about 25 years ahead of the curve.

Kennedy was the most far sighted foreign policy visionary to man the White House since FDR.

If you can believe it,in his debate with me, McAdams said both LBJ and Truman were ore liberal than Kennedy. Uh professor, why not say that to the surviving children from Hirsohima and Nagasaki. Or the survivors of that horrific cataclysm LBJ unleashed in Indochina.

LBJ’s conduct of the war in Viet Nam was incompetent and therefore far more costly than it should have been. But the cataclysm was already afoot in Indochina. I think that the worst, Pol Pot, would have happened had we never been there.

Every time I hear that speech I think to myself General Curtis LeMay and them guys must have thought Kennedy had really fliped his lid with this one. The very idea that the president thought he could just bend back 20 years of foreign policy which had been guided, manipulated and managed ever so craftily by wise men like Keenan, Harriman and Nitze who were working on behalf of The Greats, Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower.

Live in harmony with our sworn enemy? What, are you kidding me? And, Castro! Well, was Castro ready to give back all the businesses it flat out stole from under so many American business giants? Hell no he wasn’t.

Here’s an old interview of Lemay http://youtu.be/iTlbhcksugk from some time well after Kennedy, but he’s very clear that he did not, nor did he at the time of this interview see the whole nuclear exchange thing is as gloomy terms as JFK did. He must’ve really thought Kennedy was completely soft in the head hearing that A.U. speech.

It would’ve been bad, a nuclear exchange that is, but Lemay thought in the end we’d have won.

Watching what is arguably Kubrick’s best film and blackest satire, Dr. Strangelove, one is reminded of the obvious similarities between the twisted nuclear strategic logic of General “Buck” Turgidson (George C. Scott) and his military colleagues, and the equally insane thinking of “first strike” LeMay and the JCS which Kennedy had to listen to and firmly reject. Kubrick and Kennedy were both ahead of their time in warning the world of the dangers of the arms race and nuclear war, and effectively expressing their fears, hopes and visions in the arts and in politics.

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